Jonathan Callan
Jonathan Callan’s fascination with materiality has manifested itself in dismembered books, texts, maps and photographs often choosing to work with objects and images that in themselves are considered to have little or no inherent physicality. He painstakingly amplifies the physical aspects of photographic emulsion, printed texts, printed colour plates and maps.
In “Poem” Callan experimented with laser cutting for the first time. The text of “Poem” is cut out of the page using Macken Discharge Carbon Dioxide lasers; then bound into a book approximately half way through. He then extrudes clear silicone through the text.
“Most of my preoccupations are based around studies and experiments with materiality. I try to engineer situations where I can begin to improvise ‘conversations’ with stuff. The work is the result, regardless of scale, of investigations into the inherent physicality of a particular material, process or situation. Silicone seems to behave with both the viscosity of paint and the physical characteristics of gelatinous plastic. Text becomes fluid, as if hand-written, it also becomes literally embodied. ‘In some ways I see text as a carrier of second hand information. Perhaps I’m trying to make it into an object of first hand experience.”
